unfold (where does this story go?)
by acrosticacrumpet
Summary: In which Dean is a professional wizarding painter and Seamus is a contractor for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes who makes fireworks. Dean gets commissioned. Seamus gets painted. Feelings happen.


AN: Written for a request on Tumblr. I really wasn't sure how to write these two, but something seems to have worked...? Title from Imogen Heap's "Propeller Seeds".

* * *

"Seamus, man, sit _still_ ," Dean says, with more fondness – Seamus thinks – than exasperation.

Seamus rearranges himself in the chair and attempts, with limited success, to stop twitching. "Sorry." Even still, his eyes range the room. He's never been good at keeping still. Seems like these days he's no good at looking at Dean head on, either.

Once he would have known which tone in Dean's voice was the dominant one, fondness and exasperation, but that was years ago.

Dean now is taller than he was, which is a stupid change to pick up on, but also true. He carries himself differently, long and lean, looking more confident than he used to – maybe art school did that for him – but also ready to move, at any minute. It's strange looking at him like a stranger would, without that closeness they had to fall into, a well of in-jokes and shared time that cushioned the silence. But then that's why Seamus suggested him in the first place, when George said all his contractors were getting portraits done for WWW's newest publicity stunt as they went international: to reconnect, to see what's changed.

His smile is still the same, though.

* * *

Dean is kind of fucked.

God damn it, he sketched Seamus casually years ago, almost every time he drew something – it was easy, he knew Seamus' face well enough, it was just something else to sketch – why should this be different? But it is.

It's not that his face has changed that much, it's just… He's animated in a different way, now, all that relentless energy given direction – even if he still can't stop tapping his feet distractedly. He looks like he knows who he is. It's a disconcerting change from the Seamus Dean knew, quick to laugh, quick to react, all energy, almost shapeless.

It is also, unfortunately for Dean, immensely attractive. Seamus always has been. They were in each other's space 24/7 back at Hogwarts, sharing in-jokes and a dorm and personal space, looking to each other like a compass to a pole, and maybe Dean never realised what was hiding in that. Not until they were separated and Seamus was a space next to him, an absence as strong as presence.

(There's something else in the way Seamus holds himself, and Dean wonders how much they changed and diverged in their first year apart, the year when Dean learned to live on the run, always on the edge of getting caught, and Seamus learned to spit blood in the face of authority, to live in the space between blows.)

Seamus laughs at something he's said, and Dean's pencil flicks on the canvas, catching the quirk at the corner of the mouth, even as he stares, stares, _stares_.

* * *

"…except it turned out it _wasn't_ Boomslang skin," Seamus trails off, ending the anecdote there and watching – with some satisfaction – as Dean erupts into laughter, just like he used to, a great flash of white teeth and a crinkle around the eyes.

Seamus suddenly feels something like a twinge in his chest, but bigger, as if someone reached directly into his chest and squeezed some important organ until it stopped.

Shit, oh _shit_ , this did _not_ use to happen when he looked at Dean, back in the day. This is kind of new.

Except it's 'back in the day' that's the problem, isn't it. A fleeting attraction – no matter how intense and sudden – does not do this. This is intense and sudden attraction _backed up_ by literally years' worth of affection, an old, old store of trust.

This is so much heavier.

"So how much eyebrow did you lose in that explosion?" Dean says, when he's done laughing, and Seamus manages to feel that twinge and feel like he's floating at the same time. Heavy, hah. He could probably float straight through the ceiling and out into the stratosphere.

"None, actually," he says cheerfully, "it turns out even I can learn how to dodge. What about you, any explosions in that fancy art school of yours?"

Dean grins, eyes flickering back to the canvas, hands flickering in motion, reflecting. "Not where I was working, usually, that tended to happen around the kilns. Wizarding pottery seems to get messy. Anyway, we had something better."

"Blasphemy." Seamus says it completely deadpan, and tries not to let a smile take over his mouth, because this is – this is _banter_ , is what this is. This is them buoyant, floating, buoying each other up. "How the hell do you justify that?"

Banter. It's banter. It is not flirting. How can the conversation between two best friends which he took as normal for six years be flirting?

It really feels a lot like flirting.

Dean's grin takes on evil dimensions. "Two words, mate: _wizarding paintball_."

* * *

 _Seamus is not flirting with you, Seamus is not flirting with you, Dean. Get a grip. Get. A grip._

Seamus' face takes on that familiar socked-in-the-stomach look, then a delighted glint shows in his eyes. " _No_. Oh, man, why didn't we ever do that?"

 _A grip, Dean. You should get one._

"OK, but seriously, Dean, how was art school?"

Dean shrugs. The eternal awkwardness of trying to sum up several varied years into a couple of vaguely entertaining sentences… "Good, I guess? I mean. Good. Yeah. I mean – there were bad moments, like, there were moments where my teachers would be telling me why I couldn't do – whatever, and I'd know they were right, but still _really want to do_ whatever, and just kind of – sit there miserably not knowing what to do."

"Oh. Yeah. That." Seamus sounds surprisingly familiar with it. "Yeah, George gets that sometimes. I come in to deliver an order of fireworks and he'll just be sitting there, head on the desk, like – he _knows_ the idea doesn't work, but he can't let go of it and he doesn't know what to do to make it work."

"What usually happens then?" The movement of his throat as he talks, gotta get that. _Ignoring the fact that you've probably drawn his throat ten times over by now._

Seamus' voice takes on an unusually serious tone. "Well, sometimes I ask him what Fred would say."

"And he's OK with that?"

"Yeah, man." Seamus looks at him, actually looks at him. Dean is mildly disconcerted. "Not talking about Fred, that's like – keeping him embalmed, or something. The big family secret, you get me? George likes it when people talk about Fred, especially when it's about the shop. Keeps him alive and working. Fred, I mean, although I guess George too."

 _Seamus_ , Dean reflects, _is capable of emotional sensitivity._

He is definitely not going to survive this.

* * *

Two weeks later, Seamus comes back for the finished painting and actually stops in front of it and doesn't say _anything_ for a good minute at least.

"Seamus? You OK?" Dean sounds worried. Dean is probably worrying that he fucked this up.

"Dean," Seamus says, turning to him with a treacherous hope roaring in his heart and a _hell_ of a lot of confusion in his head, "I am not that handsome in real life."

Dean mumbles something inaudible, appears to think better of it upon seeing Seamus' look of confusion, takes a deep breath, draws himself up (broad-shouldered, Seamus' traitorous brain notes), and says, "I painted what I saw."

The roar of hope in Seamus' ears is as deafening as the sea. That sounds stupid. Seamus feels very stupid.

Seamus feels like he is about to do something very stupid.

"Dean," Seamus says, "if this is a really stupid decision, punch me in the face," and leans in.

* * *

Dean does not punch him in the face.

"That," Dean says, kind of breathlessly, crinkling about the eyes and teeth flashing, "was the best decision you've ever made."

"Yeah," Seamus says. He is also out of breath, and his hair is kind of messy.

"Do you – want to get dinner?"

"Leaky Cauldron?"

"Leaky Cauldron."

They break off into helpless laughter, and leave the room arm in arm.

(Not before getting Seamus' hair a bit messier, though.)


End file.
